To Patch With Gold
by UnabashedBird
Summary: "He looks at her then, really looks at her, and she knows he is seeing all the cracks in her, all the places she is broken and doesn't quite fit together anymore, all the things she tries to hide . . . Funny how, now that she starts to see them, the cracks in him look a lot like the cracks in her." They've both been through so much. Will it bring them together or push them apart?
1. Chapter 1

Content Warnings: references to canonical rape/non-con, one brief scene of non-con/dubcon romantic touching (Daniel and Adria)

A/N: Written for the 2015 Summer of Stargate on LiveJournal.

Thank you so much to my betas, peanutbutterandbananasandwichs and Chocolatequeen!

This story happened because, 1) I wrote a little episode tag for "Flesh and Blood" that actually addressed how much Vala had been though and how it was affecting her (I was able to incorporate this into the fic virtually unchanged), 2) I was thinking about how Prior!Daniel seemed so _sure_ that he would be believed, it must have been really awful for him when he wasn't, and 3) I live in a constant state of Daniel/Vala crisis. What emerged was a treatment of seasons 9 and 10 that focuses on Daniel and Vala's various traumas and, through missing scenes and some (though not much) divergence from canon, how they tried (and sometimes _utterly failed_ ) to help and support each other. The biggest divergence from canon is that they become a couple during the season 10 stuff.

eilidh17's gorgeous artwork can be viewed on LiveJournal or on tumblr.

* * *

Vala is quiet, and Daniel distrusts this quiet for completely different reasons than his usual distrust of her rare moments of quietude. She has been quiet ever since they got back from the planet where she worked herself to exhaustion trying to save a people she had previously exploited for her own survival, only to watch them fall to the Ori. He is trying to find the right shape for his question, then realizing that perhaps he should not begin with a question at all, when she makes it all much simpler.

"What's this?" She is holding the kintsugi bowl he keeps on one of his shelves.

"It's a bowl," he tells her, because this is still unfamiliar territory between them, her quiet and fragile and him wanting to help her hold herself together, and all of it in a non-crisis situation.

"Yes, I _know_ it's a bowl. I mean," she trails her fingers over the golden cracks, "Why is it like this? The gold is a different texture from the rest, like it's emphasizing the imperfections or something. Why?"

"It's called kintsugi, and it's a Japanese technique. They take a cracked or broken piece and fix it with resin, then lacquer the resin with gold, or sometimes silver." He holds her eyes with his. "It's a tangible way of showing, through craftsmanship, that brokenness doesn't need to be hidden, that it's part of the history of a thing and can, when properly repaired, contribute to its overall beauty."

"Oh," she says softly, carefully replacing the bowl. He pretends not to see her wiping her damp eyes, face half-turned away from him.

He has misjudged her, he knows now. Now that it is too late to tell her.

Not misjudged that she is one of the most obnoxious people in this or any galaxy.

Not misjudged that she can be selfish and irresponsible.

But he has misjudged the lengths to which she will go, once she commits herself to a course of action. Was she always like that, or has she changed in the short time she has been stuck with him?

And there is another thing he misjudged: that it hurts him to lose her. Not the physical hurt caused by the vestiges of the bracelets' connection snapping, but the ache of loss when he thinks that, even if she survived, he may never see her again.

He has misjudged.

Watching the video is a bizarre experience. It is him, but it is very decidedly _not him_ , telling Vala's story. She is there, using his body for all her little mannerisms and inflections. It is not a comfortable thing, watching himself as her. Or is it her as him?

When she gets to the part about her pregnancy, Daniel does not think of _Star Wars_ , Merlin, Jesus, or any other myth.

He thinks instead of a hot desert place, and a tent, and a cave, and a child born with knowledge not its own. He thinks of aliens that use humans for their purposes and care nothing for the destruction they leave in their wake. And he thinks of Sha're begging for his forgiveness when he was the one who betrayed her, not the other way around, because what the goa'uld did was never her fault, because how could his failure to give her the life she deserved ever be anything other than a betrayal?

"I said, kill him!"

 _Over my dead body_.

It is not a coherent thought so much as an instinct, an instinct that moves her between the blast from Tomin's weapon and Daniel.

She has learned a lot today.

She has learned that it is possible to be bereft when forcibly separated from the baby she never wanted to have in the first place. That it is possible to be even more horrified by her enemies' plans for the child than she was when she learned she was pregnant, and then, later, how and why she came to be so.

And now she learns that she will interpose herself between Daniel and danger, without thought and without question.

She would think about avoiding thinking about the implications of this lesson if the wound in her abdomen didn't hurt so much.

"Leave me, grab her."

"Oh, yeah, like that's gonna happen."

 _Never_. Never is when that would happen.

Vala just saved his life, provided them with probably their only chance to escape, and isn't giving him nearly as much of a hard time as he's pretty sure she should about him stunning Adria before she had a chance to finish healing Vala.

He is not leaving her behind.

(Not when he has just found her again.)

There is fire, and a Prior, and he feels the beam-out begin just in time to throw his arms around Vala as tightly as he can.

And if he is a little slow to let go once they are on board the _Odyssey_ , well, she is still injured, after all.

The others disperse, but Vala reaches out and catches Daniel's hand. "Could you . . . I don't think I want . . . "

"Yeah, of course," he says, pulling up a chair.

"Thank you," she whispers, and he sees the tears trickling down her face; she hasn't let go of his hand.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asks.

She looks at him, Daniel who saved her when she burned, Daniel who didn't hesitate to save her instead of capturing Adria, Daniel who always gives her another chance. If there is anyone she can try to explain it to, surely it's him. "I'm just so tired of being used. Of one thing or another crawling inside me and—" she cuts herself off with a strangled sob. Daniel squeezes her hand.

"I can't begin to imagine what you've been through," he tells her. "I mean, I might be able to empathize a little about the being used part, but certainly not—"

"What do you mean?" she interrupts.

"Oh. Uh. Sensitive question you don't have to answer, but in Egyptian mythology there was some overlap between the goddesses Hathor and Qetesh, in that they were both associated with fertility. We, uh, _encountered_ Hathor in the early days of the program, and she had this pheromone—"

"Yes. Assuming the question is whether Qetesh had something like that, the answer is yes. It was horrible," Vala says, staring straight ahead. "I mean, even more horrible than when . . ." she trails off, leaving the implications hanging in the air. She is too raw from this fresh attack on her autonomy to name those of the past for what they were.

"Yeah. So, that stuff. The first time we met her. She, uh, I mean, she sort of managed to get to all the men on base—I guess it must've reacted with the Y chromosome, because otherwise it really doesn't make sense that—"

"Daniel," Vala says, turning back to him and, feeling sick, realizing what he is probably babbling his way towards saying, "did she . . . _choose_ . . . you? I mean, for . . ." She swallows, searching for a way to say it without _saying_ it. "Did she . . . _take_ . . . your DNA?"

He stares at his and Vala's hands rather than meet her eyes, and nods.

"Then you do understand," she says softly.

"Maybe a little. I mean, the whole thing happened in less than a day, and Sam and the other women retook the base and got everyone to snap out of it. Hathor escaped, but we eventually killed her. Mostly I just don't think about it, you know?" He finally looks at her.

"Yes. The not thinking about it is something I've gotten very good at. But it doesn't stop the nightmares."

"No, it doesn't."

"You're a lot more of a mess than I originally thought, aren't you?"

He smiles ruefully. "You have no idea."

She smiles back, and they sit in silence, still holding hands. Vala wants to say something about how it doesn't matter that it was over in a day, that once is more than enough for a lifetime of nightmares, but she cannot get the words out.

Silence is easier. She doesn't usually like silence, but Daniel has a way of making it bearable, welcome even. He fills silences without breaking them.

Vala appreciates this.

The universe is out of balance.

It must be, for Vala to be standing on a balcony with Daniel, in Atlantis at last, trying to find the words to comfort him, because he is expressing a lot of hopelessness considering the enormous success of the mission.

Isn't he supposed to be the endless fount of optimism in all of this?

She leans to the side and bumps her shoulder against his.

"Whaat?" he says, drawing out the vowel just a little in mock annoyance. Well, she's pretty sure it's mock, and if it isn't, annoyance is better than despair, especially from him.

"We on our own destroyed an Ori ship by destroying a Wraith ship today. So what if they don't help us? I mean, who needs them and their silly rules anyway?"

He smiles at her, but it still does not reach his eyes.

"I wish I could remember," he says softly.

It is easy to forget that she is not the only one who lost a chunk of her life to powerful alien forces. She wonders whether it makes it better or worse that in his case the aliens were, at least in theory, benevolent.

"All that knowledge," he continues. "And they won't—" he cuts himself off.

Vala has learned many things since meeting Daniel Jackson. One of those is that, in his universe, the most cardinal of sins is the hoarding of knowledge. Even when he was one of them and had a better understanding of the _why_ of their rules, that was one he could not follow. Knowledge was for sharing, to the benefit of all parties.

She thinks this view is both incredibly naive and extremely admirable.

Except, looking at the lines carved into his face and the desperation in his eyes, she thinks she might need to reevaluate the "naive" part of her assessment. Yet another thing she has learned: there is a fine line between naiveté and hope. The disadvantage of landing on the hope side of that line is that it allows for the possibility of despair.

"Don't give up," she whispers, hating the rawness of her voice but not knowing how else to get through to him. "Please don't give up."

He looks at her then, really looks at her, and she knows he is seeing all the cracks in her, all the places she is broken and doesn't quite fit together anymore, all the things she tries to hide behind actions like annoying him to death while he uses the Atlantis database. Not that she wasn't legitimately irritated at his refusal to just ask the damn question, and not that she isn't genuinely amused by how easy it is to rile Daniel up but, well, those aren't the only reasons she does it.

He nudges her leg with his foot. "Don't worry," he tells her. "There's a running SGC joke that I don't even give up when I'm dead, and I've invested way too much effort in that aspect of my reputation to slack off now."

Funny how, now that she starts to see them, the cracks in him look a lot like the cracks in her.

She is unsure whether or not she should find this comforting.

He's been thinking for a while now that he should tell Vala about Sha're. The brief version he gives her in the middle of a mission, however, is not at all what he pictured in his half-formed plans. Especially since, even as he tells her, he is not entirely convinced that he wants to, that it's a good idea. Sha're is sacred, Sha're is private, Sha're is an unhealed wound he doesn't like people to know he still carries.

But Vala, well, Vala needs empathy and solidarity, and if telling her a little bit about Sha're will give her that, then OK.

Except now he cannot stop thinking about how much the way she looked at him when he told her reminds him of the way Sha're looked at him when he told _her_ about his parents. He cannot stop the twist in his gut that is pain and pleasure both when Vala's night-black hair catches his eye just so, catches the light just so, because though Sha're's hair was different in texture and thickness, it was just that color.

It was not a date.

There are many, many reasons for this, all of them good ones, he's sure, but Daniel cannot help but dwell on the fact that, if they do not find her, if she . . . well, if he never sees her again, then their last conversation will be him denying certain things that may not have been quite as untrue as he would like them to be, and being, if he's honest with himself, really very condescending and patronizing.

He can't decide whether it's selfish or not, but he knows he doesn't want that to have been their last conversation. He doesn't want that to be the end.

In matters such as this, he rarely gets what he wants. Nearly always, in fact, when what he wants is for a particular individual to not be harmed, he does not get what he wants.

He hates this pattern, but the universe doesn't generally give a fuck.

Except when it does, because they _find her_ , and he talks her down, and she _remembers him_ and puts down her gun and lets him pull her into his arms and the piece of himself that went missing when she was taken falls back into place.

He returns the flower that fell from her hair during the drive back to the base. She looks at him inquiringly. "It's yours. It fell out when they took you. I know you like your hair things, so I held onto it for you." This both is and is not the truth.

"Thank you," she says, and her smile is so uncertain that he drapes his arm around her shoulders and ignores Sam's attempt to make eye contact with him in the rearview mirror.

It still wasn't a date.

Watching Daniel in Merlin's lab reminds Vala of why it is better to be alone, to _not care_. Caring about people gives them the power to hurt you, because it lets them in through the cracks and then everything shatters. As Daniel gives way to Merlin before her eyes, she can feel herself fracturing. She will hold herself together and by doing so, keep Daniel _here_ , because he _cannot do this_ , it _cannot be worth it_.

But then he does, and Adria comes, and he lies. He lies and says he will be right behind her and Mitchell drags her through the gate and it shuts off and Daniel did not follow and she shatters, and no one even notices because Daniel is the one who knows where her cracks are and knows when they are too wide.

Knows. She has heard the stories. Daniel Jackson is legendary for always coming back. He will come back. He _must_ come back. He convinced her to make herself vulnerable, to change, so he has to come back. So she doesn't have to stay broken.

Has to come back because she needs to live in a universe where he is OK.

Tomin.

She doesn't understand how someone who seemed so sweet and kind when she met him can become _this_.

Or perhaps it is that she understands all too well.

She feels as though she is simultaneously too guilty and not guilty enough for playing on his feelings for her in order to survive, to escape.

She's not even sure how much of what she tells him is truth and how much is lies.

All she knows is that she has to get away, has to get back to her friends. Her teammates.

Her home.

The place where Daniel will go when he gets away.

And if, in the process, she can increase Tomin's doubts, remind him that he does not have to be _this_ , so much the better.

(Maybe she can still save _someone_.)

It is tempting to imagine that it is not Adria, but Vala, in these brief moments of sensuality. It would be easy, it would be a comfort, and it would be the worst sort of betrayal. Because he knows that if he makes it out of this alive and is once more confronted with a flesh and blood Vala, he will remember that he cannot let himself know his desires and his feelings, never mind telling her about them. And if he cannot do that, then he has no right to the escape of imagining it is Vala, not Adria, who presses her lips to his and trails her hands along his back.

He is grateful for the strict sexual morality of Origin, because at least it guarantees that she will not expect _that_ of him. But this, too, is a betrayal, because it was that very strictness that forced Vala to marry Tomin just so she could survive.

Was it always like this, back when it was the goa'uld they fought? Was the cost of survival always pain and betrayal? He thinks it must have been simpler and straightforward once, but then he is confronted with the memory of Teal'c, shooting the goa'uld who was killing him with a ribbon device and thus saving his life. Except, of course, that doing so also destroyed him, because the act of destructive salvation that his teammate saw as the only way forward also killed the goa'uld's host, who was Sha're, Daniel's wife, love and light of his life, who deserved to live in peace and joy more than anyone he's ever met. Thanks to him, her fate was very, very different.

So yes, it has always been like this. Adria trails her hand along his shoulder and down his arm, and for a moment he allows himself the luxury of wondering why the hell he keeps fighting, when it is always like this.

Adria's dark hair catches the light just like Vala's did. Does.

Of course. That's why.

Vala knows that voice. She would know that voice anywhere, everywhere. That voice speaks to her in her dreams.

She does not want the Prior to pull back his hood.

More than anything in the world, she needs the Prior to pull back his hood.

There will be a reason. An explanation. Coercion, or strategy, or something, anything, so long as it can be undone.

Salvaged. She needs him to be salvageable. She can forgive him anything, if only he will come back.

The Prior pulls back his hood, and she shatters and becomes whole again at the same time.

When did she acquire this instinct to run towards Daniel, no matter the circumstances? Of course, she has a lot of practice suppressing certain instincts, so Mitchell's hand gripping the back of her vest is unnecessary. Well, unnecessary for preventing her from actually running to Daniel; helpful in grounding her, in forcing her to think of things other than the impossibility of simultaneous wholeness and shattering.

She wishes the Prior had not pushed back his hood.

She wishes she could run to Daniel, because surely he could explain all this. He wouldn't even have to say anything, just fill the cracks in her with the silence that he fills with the piercing blue of his eyes and the lines of his face and the quirk of his lips.

Priors' eyes are always clouded.

It isn't supposed to be like this.

They are supposed to believe him.

They are _supposed to believe him_.

Daniel understands, on an intellectual level, why they do not. Why they cannot, not quite. He knows that carrying out his plan must be the priority, both his and theirs.

But something in him is breaking and screaming screaming screaming.

Hasn't he proved himself, time and time again? Hasn't he earned their trust?

 _No_ , whispers the memory of Hathor.

 _How could they possibly?_ says the part of him that will always long for the sarcophagus.

 _Don't be ridiculous_ cackles the instability that came from Ma'chello, from the light on P4X-347.

 _Not with your history_ reminds his instincts to help and befriend Chaka, Reese, Anna.

 _You've pulled them all into danger too many times_ admits his curiosity.

 _Have you_ seen _you lately?_ is the harsh question of his self-loathing.

But the fact remains: he needs them to believe him. He needs them to look past all those things and see that his plan is, well, not so much good as _only_ , as in only chance of taking out the Ori.

And Vala . . . Vala doesn't even know about most of those past failures, those reasons that Jack can look him in the eye and say no.

She doesn't know, and he has chosen to believe her again and again, and still she sits there and tells him she cannot take him at his word. Not about this.

Because of Adria.

Adria who has used them both, hurt them both, stolen things intangible but essential from them both.

They were supposed to believe him.

 _Vala_ was supposed to believe him.

They had all insisted that Daniel return to the infirmary for the flight back to Earth.

Vala wants to comfort him, like he did for her after Adria.

But he rolls over on his side so he faces away from her. "I just want to be alone right now, please," he says.

She's pretty sure he's lying, even without seeing his face, because she recognizes this. This is what _she_ does. Or did, before him. Before he would quietly follow her and just give her this _look_ and somehow it would be safe to not be OK. Daniel saw the cracks when no one else did, and then saw what was behind the cracks, and somehow in the process made her more whole. Daniel made her feel like maybe she could be like the kintsugi bowl in his office someday: all her cracks visible but repaired; repaired with something beautiful, even.

Daniel, she is realizing, does not let people see his cracks. Not the real ones. He wears his heart on his sleeve, as the Tau'ri say, but he hides his cracks.

But she has seen them before. On a balcony in Atlantis. In the car on the way back to the base, after he stood between her and escape in a warehouse and trusted her not to shoot him, trusted her until she remembered enough to step into his arms and let him put her back together. She thinks she can almost see some of them right now. And he is telling her to go away so he can hide them again.

Do hidden cracks ever get repaired, or do they grow and grow until he shatters?

She thinks about what Sam told her about when Daniel ascended, about what she has been reading in old mission reports, trying to understand why he would do what he did in Merlin's lab.

Yes, Daniel has shattered before. She wants to stop it from happening ever again.

"I don't believe you," she says softly, reaching out to touch his shoulder, hesitating, not sure whether physical contact is the right thing in this moment.

"Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot lately," he says, and Vala is stunned by the bitterness with which he bites off the words. Bitterness, anger, and most of all, hurt.

She closes her eyes and withdraws her hand.

She doesn't know how to fix this.

There is the possibility that it is unfixable. Daniel told them the truth and asked for their trust, and they did not give it to him, not until he took drastic action to prove himself.

"I'm sorry," Vala whispers.

"I _will_ have you kicked out," Daniel threatens, still facing away from her, either forgetting or pretending to forget the lack of medical personnel on board.

"OK," she says, and gets up to leave, deliberately making noise so he will know she is doing so.

She barely makes it to the nearest likely-to-remain-unoccupied room before sinking to the ground and burying her face in her hands to cover her sobs.

Vala doesn't reappear for the rest of the flight. This gives him time to think. And dwell.

Driving her away may have been a mistake.

But if she had stayed, he would have told her. And if he'd told her, she would have felt guilty, guilty for a set of circumstances that was in no way her fault. He refuses to increase the burdens she carries, especially when he knows now how unlikely it is that he understands the nature or the extent of them.

They are alike in that way.

And it does hurt, hurts almost more than he can bear, that she wouldn't, couldn't believe him. He would be lying if he tried to claim there wasn't a vindictive element to his refusal to let her try to piece him back together.

Daniel wonders whether anyone but Vala has even the faintest clue what a tangled mess of selfishness and altruism he is, and always has been.

Jack. Jack has a clue. But Jack left, and will be returning to his state of "not here" shortly after they return to Earth.

Besides, Jack is also on the list of people he was sure would believe him, and who most emphatically did not. Not until it was almost too late, not until after Daniel went to extremes to prove himself.

Daniel has always thought that arrogance was one of the few flaws his detractors were utterly wrong in attempting to ascribe to him. He's beginning to think he might need to revisit that assessment.

Perversely, he wishes Vala were here to annoy him out of this particular iteration of bad mood and into another one.

More perversely still, he resents that, even if she were here, that would not be her strategy, because she has spent more time with _him_ than with anyone else, and so the growth and change she has undergone have a distinct slant towards behaviors and thought processes that come as close to resembling what he might do as possible while still being authentically Vala-esque.

In short, because she has become, or has allowed herself to show that she is, the sort of person who cares about what he needs, she will not give him what he is mostly certain he needs in this moment. At least in terms of needs that are actually within the scope of possibility.

He has many needs that lie utterly outside that scope. Those, he is well-versed in ignoring.

Once she has herself back under control, Vala thinks back over everything Daniel has said since they first beamed him off the planet, trying to find something, anything she can latch onto and change to something else and smooth into the cracks before it is too late.

Whether it is the cracks in him or the cracks in their relationship, she chooses not to examine. She also chooses not to examine why she chooses not to examine this.

This is not her skill set. This is not what she does. This is what _Daniel_ does, the finding of threads, the parsing of sentences, the smoothing of cracks.

She suspects he has never been able to do this for himself.

She wonders whether he will let her try to do it for him.

She chooses not to contemplate what will happen if he continuously does not.

Daniel can feel the concern rolling off them in waves, feel them wanting reassurance that he is OK. Wanting to help him be OK.

He is not interested.

What happened, happened, and no amount of coffee, cookies, sympathetic glances, or whatever else they decide to try will change it.

Medical clears him. They debrief with Landry. Jack catches his eye as they leave, clearly wanting a word, wanting to smooth things over.

"See you around," Daniel says, and leaves Jack standing there.

He feels rather than sees Sam and Teal'c preventing Jack, Vala, and Cam from going after him.

He supposes he should be grateful, but all he feels is numb.

No, he _wishes_ that all he feels is numb. What he feels is hurt and guilt and wrongness and rawness and as though Adria left bloody fingerprints everywhere she touched him as a declaration for anyone who lays eyes on him, _look, you see, I made him mine and he let me because deep down it's what he wanted_.

He closes his eyes and leans against the corridor wall, attempting to get his breathing under control.

Vala manages to dodge Sam and Teal'c and go after Daniel. She might not understand its nature, but she understands that Daniel is in pain, and she and the others have something to do with it. If they are part of the problem, then surely they must be part of the solution. Sam and Teal'c don't know everything, and not all habits are good ones.

She hopes she is making the right choice.

She finds him in a corridor, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, pale. She approaches and lays a hand on his shoulder.

There is a hand on his shoulder. A slender, gentle hand, and for a moment he forgets where he is, cannot remember whether he is safe on the base or still with Adria, still needing her to think he is hers, so he reaches up and covers the hand with his own and prepares his lie for when she asks him what he is doing.

But when he opens his eyes it is Vala, looking at him with concern and confusion in her big gray eyes.

He jerks away from her, eyes wide and muscles tense, and as he begins to hurry away from her, recognition and the resultant horror settle like a stone in the pit of her stomach.

"Daniel," she says, soft and sharp. He stops, but he does not turn towards her. The corridor is empty. "You do not _ever_ need to feel ashamed of doing what was necessary for your own survival."

He turns and slaps her across the face.

No, wait, that isn't what he does.

He turns, his eyes icy, voice low and cutting, and says "Don't you dare compare whatever ways you debased yourself to save your own sorry skin to what I had to do to give us a chance of saving the entire galaxy from your mistakes."

She would have preferred the slap.

She doesn't know how long she stands, frozen, in the corridor, personnel flowing around her with curious, concerned glances, until Sam arrives and steers her back to her quarters.

Daniel hates himself.

This is not an infrequent occurrence.

But he doesn't think he's hated himself this much since the day Sha're gave birth on Abydos. Specifically, the moment Teal'c pointed out that he was being a self-pitying douchebag who needed to pull his head out of his ass and behave like a decent human being.

Not that Teal'c put it quite that way, but it was the truth.

He can't believe he said that to her. Can't believe that in one sentence, just one carefully-phrased sentence he, 1) made both assumptions and judgments about her past experiences, 2) blamed her for the Ori presence in the Milky Way, and 3) ignored and dismissed her attempt to tactfully let him know that she'd realized at least part of the nature of his relationship with Adria, and she wanted to help him.

He removes his glasses and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if doing so will stop the tears attempting to form there.

He hates himself so goddamn much.

"What happened?" Sam asks Vala once they are seated in Vala's quarters, Sam's arm around Vala's shoulders.

Vala shakes her head. She understands lashing out because you are hurt and vulnerable and unsure whether anyone can be trusted with that hurt and vulnerability. She understands this. She recognizes this. She can forgive this.

The problem is the part of her that wonders how much he meant it. She wants to believe he meant none of it at all, but she is still far too fragile, his reactions far too unpredictable, for her to be able to indulge that belief.

She wants to tell Sam. The problem is, Sam is too good a friend to both of them. If she tells Sam only what Daniel said and frames it as his response to her attempt at sympathy, Sam will be angry at Daniel, will go and, oh, what is that lovely Tau'ri phrase? Read . . . read him the riot act on Vala's behalf. This is not what she wants, because it would not be fair, would make Daniel feel more alone and miserable than she knows he already does. But to tell Sam what she deduced would be, in a strange way, a betrayal of confidence. He did not tell her with words, and he did not mean to tell her at all, but he did tell her, and she is sure he doesn't want the others to know; if he did, he would have mentioned it when explaining where he'd been, what he'd been doing, and what his plan was.

"Vala, talk to me, please," Sam tries again.

"I can't," Vala manages to say, voice thick with unshed tears. "It's . . . it's complicated, and it's private. Please don't ask me—" she sobs once, then stops. She will lock it all down. She used to be so good at that.

Then Daniel.

Then _Daniel_.

And now Daniel . . .

"OK," Sam says, and wraps her other arm around Vala's shoulders and squeezes.

Vala wishes she could find more comfort in the reminder that Daniel is not the only one who holds her together when she breaks. Maybe she would, if he wasn't the one who broke her this time.

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says from the doorway of Daniel's office.

"Not a good time, Teal'c."

Teal'c does not move. "You are troubled."

"Close the door," Daniel says tiredly. Teal'c does so. Then he waits.

Daniel can wait, too.

He's not going to talk about it.

He's not.

Teal'c is very good at waiting.

Mitchell does not knock before barging into the office.

"What the hell is goin' on?" he demands.

Daniel attempts to look confused.

"Why," Mitchell amends, biting the word off at the end, tone clipped and angry, "are Vala and Sam in the mess, with Vala _looking_ like a mess and eating everything with chocolate in it and refusing to say what's got her so upset?"

"Why would you assume that has anything to do with me?" Daniel says, tone too defensive. He knows why they can't just leave him to sabotage his . . . _friendship_ . . . with Vala, but he wishes they would. He wishes they would leave him to self-destruct in peace.

"Well gee, I don't know, maybe because if anyone else made her that damn miserable she would tell us! What the hell has gotten into you, anyway?"

That's the opening he needs.

"Hmm, I wonder. I mean, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with spending weeks as Adria's lapdog for the sake of giving us a chance against the Ori, only to have my teammates, my _friends_ or so I thought, refuse to believe that I was on their side now could it? Hard to imagine why _that_ might be upsetting, I know."

"Hey, whoa, time out. Are you seriously blaming us for hesitating to shut down the wormhole that was preventing the Ori armies from sending more ships through?" Mitchell asks, voice rising. "Especially when the intel came from a _Prior_ —"

"From me!" Daniel yells, cutting Mitchell off. "From a Prior who was _me_. But you know what, I get it. It's fine. I'm not trustworthy. I'm a curious, gullible screw-up and should be treated as such. It's fine. Just . . . just don't expect me to act like you guys think otherwise, OK?"

Mitchell shakes his head. "You don't mean that. We don't think that way about you, and you don't believe that we do. I'm sorry we had to be cautious, and I'm even more sorry for whatever details of what you went through you're not telling us. If you need some time to deal, that's fine. But quit taking it out on us, and . . . look, I never know what the hell is goin' on with you and Vala, but I'm pretty sure you owe her an apology."

"I'll think about it," Daniel mutters darkly.

Mitchell leaves, but Teal'c is still there.

"Something you'd like to add?" Daniel asks harshly.

"Whatever you think you are protecting her from, it is not working."

"No offense, Teal'c, but you don't know what you're talking about." This is a lie, but if it's a lie that will make the Jaffa go away, he can live with that.

"Perhaps," Teal'c says, and gets up to leave. He pauses by the door. "Whether I am right or wrong, Colonel Mitchell was correct: you owe Vala Mal Doran an apology."

"I know," Daniel whispers, long after Teal'c is gone.

Forty-five minutes later, Sam shows up.

"Hey, so, Cam told me what you said," she says cautiously.

"Yeah?" He is too tired for this. Too full of self-loathing for this. But it's Sam, and she probably ascertained both those things as soon as she laid eyes on him.

"Yeah. Daniel . . . you have to know it wasn't like that. We trust _you_. We believe _you_. We just didn't know whether you _were_ you. I'm not saying . . . I can understand why that would still be hard. I just don't want you to think—"

"No, I get it. I was out of line. There's just . . . it's just kinda rough right now. I'll be fine." It's the traditional thing to say, that he will be fine. It turns out to be a lie less than half the time.

"Is there anything—"

"No."

"OK." She says it softly. He probably doesn't deserve a friend like Sam. A closest-thing-he'll-ever-have-to-a-sister like Sam. "Do you think . . . do you think you could talk to Vala?"

Daniel doesn't know whether Sam's kind, understated way of calling him on his bullshit is easier or harder to deal with than Mitchell and Teal'c's forthrightness.

"Yeah. Yeah, I should probably do that."

Sam nods, and leaves him to his thoughts.

Vala contemplates not answering the soft knock at her door. She _knows_ it's him. But if he is coming to her, then surely, surely he has come to explain, to apologize, to repair and smooth and make right.

She cannot refuse that, so she opens the door.

Daniel stands there, hands in his pockets, eyes downcast. "Can I come in?" he asks, looking up through his lashes and not quite meeting her eyes. She nods and steps aside.

"So, the thing is," he says, once she closes the door, "is that I'm an enormous ass. There is absolutely no excuse for what I said to you earlier. None. So I'm sorry."

"Then why did you say it?" she asks, arms tightly crossed over her chest.

"What?"

"Why did you say it?" she repeats. "I agree that there's no _excuse_ , but you still must've had a _reason_ , and I want to know what it is. I think you owe me that."

"Oh, I owe you that?" he says, and she can hear the temper flaring in his voice. "I _owe you that_? Sure, I mean it's not like you just _assumed_ , not like you made protecting you—"

" _Protecting_ me?" she interrupts, her own voice rising. "What do you mean, protecting me? I'm not the one who needs protecting right now!"

"From Adria!" he shouts. "I was protecting you from Adria, from having to know what she did to me! I didn't want you to have to live with your daughter—"

"She is _not_ my daughter!" Vala yells. Her arms are at her sides now, hands balled into fists, and she storms right into Daniel's personal space and hisses, "How many times do I have to say it? I never wanted a child, not ever. They used me as the vessel to get her across the border, nothing more. If I choose to exploit her perception of our relationship in the hopes of saving lives, that's my business and mine alone. And do you honestly think," her voice is rising again, "that, that what she did to you is worse than mass murder? Because I've seen her do that! Do you think it's worse than watching her order Tomin to kill you, than watching _her_ try to kill you? Because I've seen her do that, too, Daniel! How dare you think you have the right to . . . to limit my knowledge of her atrocities out of some misguided, paternalistic perception that the fact that I was forced to give birth to her somehow changes the way I feel about her?" She is yelling by the end, then her voice drops to a whisper and, almost against her will, she repeats, "I've watched her try to kill you."

He stares at her, for once at a loss for words.

Vala nods, blinking in an attempt to prevent the tears in her eyes from falling. "I think you should go," she says. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, but you don't get to hide behind some false sense of noble sacrifice when you do it, especially not if you're going to say things like what you said instead of just telling me you don't want to talk about it." She turns until her back is to both him and the door. "I can't be around you until I'm sure you understand that."

"Vala." He says it so brokenly that she almost turns, almost runs to him because she knows she _knows_ they are both shattered now, both sitting in the middle of a mess of fragments with no clue how to even begin to piece them back together.

"I'm sorry," she says, "but I need you to go."

"OK," he whispers, and she hears his footsteps, hears the door open then close, and she is alone.


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn't come to his office, doesn't sit next to him in briefings or with him in the mess.

He doesn't swing by her quarters or bring her good coffee from town or ask her how she is.

She is miserable.

He is miserable.

They are miserable.

Her nightmares of his transformation, of Daniel disappearing into Merlin and vanishing because she _left him behind_ now include Daniel Prior-pale and cloudy-eyed, begging for her help and she _wants_ to, she _tries_ to, but something stops her and he sees only a cold, unrelenting exterior before Adria drags him beyond her reach forever.

His nightmares are filled with Adria whispering in his ear, touching him in seemingly innocent ways with deceptively gentle hands. But everything reeks of fire and death, and Vala stands just out of reach, begging him to come back, and he's _trying_ but he can't he can't he can't and there is a torch in his hand and Adria is guiding forcing it towards a pool of oil and he's running out of time to stop her from making him do this because Vala isn't standing she is _bound_ , bound in place by Adria, and if the torch touches the oil then Vala will burn.

He always wakes up just at the crucial moment, never knowing whether he was strong enough to save her.

Daniel sees the lack of bounce in Vala's step, the too-bright nature that lends falseness to her smiles.

Vala sees the way Daniel never fully relaxes, the set of his shoulders and the crease between his eyes that won't smooth out.

Neither knows what glue could possibly piece their shattered selves back together.

They are miserable and exhausted, but they are professionals, and there is work to do. They carry on.

Vala knows it's bad when blowing up three Lucian Alliance transports in a row utterly fails to cheer her up. When her teammates scatter during their well-earned break between missions, she decides she is going to make a proper effort to have some fun. (She is in no way disappointed that Daniel did not even pretend to offer to let her join him at the museum where he's doing some research. She is in no way discovering that, miserable as she is being around him with things so broken, she is even more miserable when he is not around at all. That would be ridiculous.)

So she talks Mitchell into taking her along to his high school reunion. It's such a change, such an escape, that there are moments where she almost forgets, where it really does feel like fun. But then she's stopping herself from turning to try and catch Daniel's eye, because Daniel of course is not here and even if he was they don't do that anymore, and the fun slips right back out of her grasp.

Then Ventrell shows up, and once that's all sorted, she has to watch Mitchell have a lovely romantic connection with someone he's apparently always been hung up on, and there's a strange hollow feeling in her chest that she doesn't want to examine, so she shoves it down and teases Mitchell about Amy, because if she just comes out and says that she's happy for him then she might have to admit to herself that some of the hollowness is jealousy. Not of Mitchell-he's attractive enough to flirt with and even bed if she could talk him into it, but her interest ends there-but of the connection.

Some things are too dangerous to even acknowledge wanting.

She halfheartedly attempts to distract herself with plans to go on a quest to find decent pie in Colorado Springs. Except it's no good, because at least half the fun would be dragging Daniel along with her, him pretending to be more annoyed than he is and probably trying to tell her the cultural history and significance of pie, as well as how to say "pie" in a dozen languages, with a tangent on pie-like variants of pie in cultures that do not, in fact, have pie.

They would probably end up throwing napkins at each other. If she was feeling particularly sure of the falsity of his irritation, she might even shove some pie in his face.

In short, she misses him. She wasn't wrong to call him out, but she misses him.

And she's terrified that, even if he understands his mistake and plans to try not to make it again, she hasn't left him a way back, hasn't told him where the glue is for whenever he decides he's ready to use it.

Daniel is grateful to be able to go off and bury himself in work. It's a skill he's always had, and he avoids thinking about the people in his life who would be inclined to suggest that it isn't so much a skill as a bad habit.

It's good to be somewhere she has never been, to not look up and see the empty chair where she usually sits.

It's good right up until the bounty hunter tries to kill him, and the rest of the team is threatened, and he finds out that Vala went with Mitchell _to Mitchell's high school reunion_.

He's done. He can't take this anymore. At the very least he needs to say . . . needs to acknowledge . . . things can't continue like this. They're both too lost and miserable and hurt, and he doesn't even know anymore how much of it is that they've hurt each other and how much of it is the things done to them in the last few months being the straw that broke the camel's back.

He just . . . he needs her to sit next to him in briefings and invade his personal space and say things of at best questionable appropriateness and he needs to see the spring in her step that makes him want more coffee just watching her.

He needs to prove to her that he isn't an asshole so she can go back to being herself. Since apparently there's a connection there.

Better not examine _that_ too closely.

He buys her a bar of fancy dark chocolate, attaches a sticky note that says simply, "Can we talk?" slides it under the door to her quarters, and waits for her to get back from fucking Kansas with fucking Mitchell.

Not thinking about that either.

There's a chocolate bar on the floor in her quarters, and the sticky note on it is in Daniel's handwriting.

Of course. Daniel Jackson always finds his own path to where he needs to go.

She sets down her bags, picks up the chocolate bar, and lays it almost reverently on her bedside table. Then she goes to Daniel's office, hoping he'll be there.

He is. She knocks tentatively on the doorframe, and when he looks up, the small smile he gives her is just as tentative.

"Hey. You, uh, you mind closing the door?" he asks, standing up to walk around and lean against his desk, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

She does as he asks.

"Listen," Daniel says, then falters. He removes his glasses, closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. "God, Vala, everything is so fucked up."

She takes a few steps towards him. Stops. Waits. He's right of course, and it's difficult to stop, to not run to him, but that would definitely be a mistake right now.

Wouldn't it?

He steps away from his desk. Towards her. Stops. Replaces his glasses. Takes a deep breath. "I don't . . . no, that's not what I want to say. You were right that it was wrong of me to think I could or should protect you from Adria in that way, for that reason. You were right. I should've listened to you. I'm sorry."

She doesn't think, just moves, and he moves too, and then they are in each other's arms, holding each other tight tight tight and Vala can feel the broken pieces fitting back into place.

"I'm sorry, too," she murmurs. "I'm sorry I hurt you, I never wanted to hurt you, I just—"

He steps back a pace, partially breaking the hug, and puts a hand on her face, gently cutting her off. "You don't have to—I understand. I do. But thank you . . . thanks anyway."

She nods, staring up into his eyes, feeling her heart rate speed up.

This is a precipice.

They are on a precipice and she isn't sure how they got here but she is looking into his eyes and his thumb is stroking her cheek and his other hand is still at her waist and she reaches up, slowly slowly slowly, puts her hand gently on his neck, and pulls him toward her.

Her touch is gentle and asking and God help him he _wants this_ and then they are kissing and then—

And then.

He is not sure where he is-is he in his office with Vala or is he on an Ori ship with _her_ he thinks he can hear someone calling his name but it sounds so far away he tries to maintain the kiss if it's _her_ then it isn't safe to stop until she does if it's Vala he doesn't want to stop but whoever it is is pulling back it sounds like Vala, like Vala calling his name . . .

For the briefest of moments the kiss is perfect, sweet and tender and longing, but then something changes and it's all wrong.

Vala opens her eyes and sees lines of tension in Daniel's face and she immediately pulls back, murmuring his name with increasing urgency as he clings to her and she cannot pin down _how_ she knows, _what_ exactly tips her off, but she knows he is not OK and they need to stop.

"Daniel. _Daniel_. Daniel. Daniel please snap out of it. _Daniel_."

He opens his eyes.

Vala is staring at him, eyes wide with concern, her hands on his shoulders.

He drops his hands from her face and hangs his head. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

"No, Daniel, no, it's _all right_ ," she tells him. He shakes his head, and she reaches out and lifts his chin until he's looking at her. "You have _nothing_ to be sorry for," she tells him fiercely. "Not about this. This is not your fault. We can go as slow or as fast as you need to, but you never, _ever_ have to apologize for needing to stop or slow down or take a break. Not to me."

Of course. Because she understands, she _knows_ what this is like. "How did you do it?" he asks brokenly. "How did you get from—from . . . well, I don't know, was it ever . . . "

"Yes, yes it was. It was. But I reclaimed myself, because that was what was right for me, what worked for me. Every act of sensuality and sexuality that I performed because it was what _I_ wanted was an act of rebellion, was me staking my claim to my own body. But I suspect part of the reason that worked for me was because I was a very sexual person before Qetesh, so really it was just a way of restoring my default settings, as it were."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

Daniel looks thoughtful. Vala taps his temple lightly. "What's brewing up there?" she asks. "And . . . I mean, is this OK? Me touching your face like this?"

"Yeah. As long as I can see you, can know who it is, everything is fine. It's just . . . "

"You don't have to explain," she reassures him, stroking his cheek.

Adria did this. And as much as she reminds herself that Adria is not her daughter, that what Adria does is not her fault, some of the hatred and revulsion Vala feels is directed towards herself, because that monster _came from her_ , and it's still true what she told Daniel several weeks ago, the mass murder is worse, but . . . it's Daniel. Adria has hurt Daniel in the most intimate ways possible, and Vala feels so powerless in the face of it all.

Daniel threads his fingers through her hair. "Hey," he says, tapping her temple now, "what are you thinking?"

She laces her hands around his neck. "Nothing pleasant, unfortunately." His brow furrows, and he leans forward and kisses her forehead. She closes her eyes, opening them when she feels his forehead come to rest against hers.

"So," she says after a moment of this. "We seem to have sped right past, um, whatever we were before and into new territory."

"Looks that way," he agrees.

"So, parameters? I mean, I assume this is the sort of thing that needs parameters, especially since we're both rather fragile in our own ways at the moment."

"You know, I'm starting to worry about how sensible you're being about this; it's just not like you," Daniel teases, and Vala smiles and kicks him lightly in the shin, because he sounds so much like his old self. "But, as for parameters . . . well, like I already said, touching is fine as long as I can see it's you. And don't get me wrong, I _want_ to kiss you, but it looks like there's going to be something of an adjustment period. Sor—" She raises her eyebrows, and he catches himself, smiling.

"And what about . . ." Vala hesitates, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "I mean, it seems fairly obvious to me that we've both been harboring feelings for each other, but, um . . . perhaps the simplest way to ask this is, what are we telling people?"

That's the question, isn't it? She's not wrong about him having feelings for her—he's just been refusing to let himself know it, refusing to consider the possibility of her reciprocating.

Such refusal was supposed to make everything easier.

"I don't . . ." he begins slowly. "I mean, we're gonna take things slow, right? And let's face it, people are kind of used to us acting in ways that are pretty couple-like, so we can probably get away with a lot without raising suspicions, especially if we play the 'we had a fight but now we've reconciled' card. So maybe we just . . . don't tell anyone yet. Just see how things unfold. Does that sound OK to you?"

She cocks her head, considering, then nods. "So, to be clear, as we're, ah, seeing how things unfold, we are being . . . exclusive?"

"Why, did you have big Friday night plans?"

"Daniel."

Of course. She's testing the waters. Seeing how much he's willing to admit. If she finds this plunge, this possibility of breaking each other in so many new ways, half as terrifying as he does, she's probably looking for reassurance.

"Yes, I would like us to be exclusive while we figure this out. I realize that might be—" she stops him with a finger to his lips, then slowly takes it away. "What was that for?"

"Helping you to not say something thoughtless and probably hurtful," she tells him. "You're still unlearning your bad habit of making assumptions about me."

He takes her face in his hands and, slowly, keeping his eyes open this time, kisses her. It's awkward, kissing with his eyes open, but the way she just melts into him, the softness of her lips against his, is all very much worth it.

It's been what feels like several lifetimes since Vala has kissed and been kissed like this: tender and sweet and affectionate, both of them fully meaning it and not simply trying to survive, and with no intention, at least for the moment, of moving any further into sexual territory.

It's bliss.

The kiss ends, and they sigh, contentment and longing all tangled together. Vala opens her eyes and sees Daniel's eyes alight with a smile before she can see the rest of his face.

"So," she murmurs.

"So," he echoes.

"Want to catch me up on what you've been working on? I think I'm rather dreadfully out of the loop."

"Sounds good to me."

They sit, Vala pulling a chair right up next to Daniel's so that their arms and shoulders keep brushing. He shoots her concerned glances as he begins to explain that he's been looking over Athena's research into the _Clava Thessara Infinitas_ , and she considers telling him that the memory she dwells on the most from that whole ordeal is the team coming for her, not giving up on her, and him. Him saving her from her own instincts, pulling her into his arms and putting her back together. She thinks perhaps this is something she should tell him.

Not yet, though. Not yet. They have leaped, and it's wonderful, but she doesn't know yet whether the landing will shatter them anew.

She tells him to stop fussing and get on with the explanation, and he narrows his eyes at her and bumps her shoulder with his.

He finishes his explanation, gives her some documents to cross-reference, and they work in near-silence for the next few hours.

It's like finally coming home after too long away.

At least, she's pretty sure that's what it's like—it's been such a long time since she had a home to return to.

It's like being whole again, jagged edges smoothed and filled and fit back together.

She sighs and leans her head against his shoulder, smiles when he hums contentedly against her ear.

Mitchell pokes his head in Daniel's office when he arrives on base the next morning to find Daniel and Vala sitting very close together and bickering about the risk of crumbs from the scone Vala is eating damaging the documents spread all over the workbench.

They don't see him, too wrapped up in . . . _whatever_. He smiles, shakes his head, and leaves them to it.

He doesn't think he'll ever understand exactly what goes on with those two, but he knows by now that what he's just seen is a very, very good sign, that the misery of the last few weeks is finally over.

Within a few days, Daniel and Vala have finished checking Athena's research and cross-referenced it with the SGC cartouche, which leads to a gate address. What the MALP finds is promising, and they get the go-ahead from Landry for SG-1, minus Sam, to investigate.

Of course, things get complicated when it turns out the gate on the other side was in a museum exhibit and the DHD was a reconstruction rather than the genuine article.

"We're stuck," Daniel says.

"No we're not," Vala corrects him. They all look at her, waiting for an explanation. Honestly, the boys would be so _helpless_ without her or Sam around, it's almost cute. "Well, when we fail to make the scheduled check-in, General Landry will dial in, at which point we'll ask him to send a naquadah generator and a laptop with a dialing program and that's that!"

Daniel attempts to recover. "We knew that! I-I-I thought that when I said that we're stuck, that you would know that I meant 'until then.'"

She's not letting him off that easily. "Well, then you should say what you mean."

Daniel opens his mouth to reply, but she raises her eyebrows and he apparently thinks better of whatever he was going to say. She smiles at him, and he looks both contrite and resigned.

She'll ask him about that later.

They still won't let her go to the party currently happening in another part of the museum, and after all the fuss Mitchell and Teal'c cause by running after the screaming woman while waving their guns around, when she would've had the sense to, well, _not do that_ , she definitely plans to hold this whole fiasco over all their heads for a while. As she works on accessing the museum's network to see just how FUBAR (she does love that particular idiom-there's something to be said for hanging out with the SG-3 Marines) things have gone, she thinks that the first order of business when Sam gets back will be to, within earshot of the boys, loudly regale her about what happened on this planet.

She hears one of the hostages say that someone on the other end of the radio wants to talk to whoever's in charge. She turns around just in time to see him hand his radio to _Daniel_ , and she clears her throat loudly and raises her eyebrows before he can speak into it, because that is clearly a terrible idea. Mitchell tries to hide his smirk and holds out his hand for the radio. Daniel narrows his eyes at Vala, mutters something she can't hear, and hands the radio over, at which point Mitchell attempts to explain that they aren't these rebels for whom they've been mistaken.

Then Daniel actually wants them to free the hostages, and it's honestly adorable how naive he can still be. Fortunately for her overall peace of mind about her teammates' ability to survive if she isn't there to watch their every move, Teal'c and Mitchell are also aware of why they can't let their accidental captives go.

She's feeling rather less amused by the whole situation when Daniel gets zapped by one of the medics they let in to tend to the man Mitchell _shot_. But Daniel is fine-getting zapped into unconsciousness doesn't even register as traumatic for any of them, not since before they all knew each other. Which, she reflects, is lucky for her and her burgeoning relationship with Daniel, considering their first encounter.

It turns out that adorable, naive academics are an abundant commodity on this mission, because Cicero speaks up while they're trying to figure out what to demand from the negotiator, and before long she and Daniel are off with him to see whether the DHD's power source was one of the recovered fragments while Mitchell makes demands and generally attempts to stall; the sooner they can get out of here, the better.

The power source is of course not among the fragments, because that's just the kind of day it is.

Vala decides that things might finally be looking up when, on their way to check one other place that might have a usable power source, she spots a naquadah bomb in a display case. She is perhaps more delighted than a _former_ thief such as herself ought to be that getting the bomb out of the case so they can use the power source and get the hell out will require her burgling skills. One look at Daniel's face when she begins to narrate the steps for "removal of treasure from a sealed glass enclosure," tells her that, if she wants uninterrupted bragging rights about being the reason they all got out of this more or less unscathed, she should stay focused and professional.

"Tell you what," she says, "I will endeavor to not elucidate my genius while I work if you, instead of looking at me all judgy-like, turn around and keep watch."

"Keep watch, why would-"

"It's a big building, darling, and people can be sneaky."

He eyes her pointedly. "Yes. Yes they can."

Being able to give the security system her full attention ends up being crucial: she almost doesn't see the motion sensor that would have brought a metal cage crashing down around the case had she not disabled it. Making Daniel watch their backs was also a good idea, because a security guard, whose favorite movie would definitely be _Die Hard_ if he were from Earth, attempts to sneak up on them. Fortunately he's terrible at it, and Daniel easily zats and disarms him.

Half an hour later, Cicero and Jayem the irritating and overzealous security guard watch wide-eyed as they successfully establish a connection by manually dialing the gate and using the naquadah in the bomb as a power source. Vala sends through the iris code while Daniel, after promising Cicero that they'll send another MALP through to do first contact properly, radios Mitchell and Teal'c to get to the gate. As soon as they hear their teammates running down the hall, Daniel and Vala go through the gate with the MALP, Mitchell and Teal'c not far behind them.

"You see, boys, this is why you never come between me and a party," she tells them smugly once the wormhole disengages, tossing her ponytails over her shoulders and leading the way out of the gate room.

"I know I'll probably regret saying this after you've rubbed it in our faces for the millionth time, but you did good today. That . . . probably would've been a lot worse without your particular brand of expertise to move things along and get us out," Daniel tells Vala. They are in her quarters, him in a chair and her on his lap.

"Oh, there's no 'probably' about it; you boys can _clearly_ not ever be left to your own devices. But still . . . thank you for acknowledging my contributions." After a moment she asks him, "What was that look on your face after I told you that you should say what you mean?"

He grimaces. "Let's just say I'm glad you stopped me from opening my big mouth."

"That bad, huh?"

"Apparently I'm still getting over a bad case of 'assuming I know what Vala is thinking.'"

"Hmm. How did you contract such a terrible condition in the first place?"

"Well, I can't be sure, but it _may_ have something to do with spending the early parts of our acquaintance trying to figure out how much of what you said was true and, when you lied, what kind of lies they were."

"Oh. Yes. That." She is staring at her lap, restlessly twining her hands together.

He reaches out and gently turns her head so she's looking at him. "Look, I . . . " he sighs.

"No, no, it's . . . I mean, the mistrust is certainly something I earned. I suppose I was just hoping that that was all in the past now. And, for what it's worth, I'm sorry. I know I kind of, uh, steamrolled your life and was just generally unbearable at first. But-"

"Vala," he interrupts, then pauses. His next words, he senses, must be chosen with utmost care. "I appreciate the apology for things from, you know, early on. But you're right. That was a while ago now, and you don't deserve . . . you don't deserve the way I still treat you sometimes. You risked your life to destroy the first supergate, then again to warn us about the coming invasion. You proved yourself over and over so we'd let you be one of us when you could have left to make your own way. You don't lie about things that a member of SG-1 shouldn't lie about." He takes her hands in his. "So I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry that I use the way you used to be as an excuse to be horrible to you when you drive me up the wall. After spending six years on SG-1 with Jack, I should know better."

She cocks her head.

"What?"

"I'm just trying to decide whether to be flattered or insulted by that comparison."

He smiles and kisses her cheek. "Probably a bit of both, just to be safe."

She hums and leans against his shoulder, and he puts his arms around her waist. "Thank you for saying that. I know I don't always make things easy for you, but it goes both ways, don't you think?"

He rests his cheek on the top of her head. "Yeah. Yeah, it does."

Things are quiet for a few days. Sam returns from Washington. Teal'c leaves to attend a Jaffa summit.

Then Teal'c misses his check-in, and what they find when they go to investigate is hellish. Teal'c and Bra'tac are alive but badly injured, and Dr. Lam doesn't know whether they'll pull through.

Vala is terrified. It feels as though she just got Daniel back, because those weeks when they weren't right with each other don't count, and now Teal'c might . . . she can't even bring herself to think it.

The four of them, the uninjured of SG-1, gather in Daniel's office while Teal'c is in surgery. It is a mostly silent gathering. Mitchell paces, Sam fidgets, and Daniel and Vala hold hands under the table.

Finally they get the call: Teal'c is out of surgery. Out of _this round_ of surgery, because he'll need more soon.

Mitchell smacks his hand against the workbench. "I got first shift," he says, and heads to the infirmary.

"I'm gonna try to get some sleep," Sam says softly, and leaves as well.

"That's probably a good idea," Daniel says, looking at Vala.

"Probably. But . . . "

He brushes her cheek with his thumb. "What?"

"I don't want to be alone right now," she says brokenly. "I don't know how to do this, especially not so soon after—" she stops herself, looking at Daniel with round, wet eyes.

"OK," he says simply.

"Really?"

"We sleep near each other all the time on missions."

"This is different."

"I know," he admits after a moment's hesitation.

"And you're OK with it?"

"Just sleeping, right? A little horizontal cuddling while unconscious? A little reassurance that we're both still here?"

Sometimes Daniel says or does things that cut her to the core and she doesn't think he even knows he's done it. Other times, like right now, he says _exactly the right thing_ , and she thinks maybe she—no, now is _really_ not the time for that.

"Yes. Yes, that's it exactly."

"Lead the way, then."

They don't sleep much or well for the two weeks that Teal'c is unconscious, but lying wrapped around each other in Vala's bed is definitely more restful than being alone.

They spend the days going through reports, trying to piece together what happened, how, and why. They rotate with Sam and Mitchell in keeping vigil at Teal'c's bedside. If Sam or Mitchell notice that Daniel and Vala always do their shifts together, or that Daniel isn't leaving the base at night, they don't say anything.

When they are alone in his office, Daniel touches Vala as much as he can, both because he knows it calms and comforts her and because the more he does it the easier it is to ward off bad memories and panicky reactions when they kiss.

Not that they're kissing much at the moment, which is probably for the best—they both understand that adding kissing to the current bed sharing, on top of their constant worry about Teal'c, would be a bad idea at this juncture.

The few times that it does happen, Daniel is grateful beyond words for how attuned to him Vala seems to be. She always does the same thing with her hands, one on his neck with her fingers in his hair and the other on his cheek, and she checked with him before she started doing it, to make sure it isn't something Adria did. It's getting easier to be sure of where he is and who he's kissing, and to remain sure for longer periods.

Finally, Teal'c wakes up, and then it's a matter of explaining what happened and trying to convince Teal'c to, well, be reasonable. But Daniel has been friends with the Jaffa for too long to have any real hope that Teal'c will do anything other than what Teal'c judges to be the right course of action, doctor's orders and prudence be damned.

Landry kicks them all off base once Teal'c is resettled and sleeping after seeing Bra'tac. They meet up for dinner and attempt to be cheerful: Teal'c is alive and he's going to make a full recovery. But they all know this isn't the end of it, that Teal'c is going to go after whoever did this, probably sooner than he should in terms of a recovery period. And Bra'tac is still on life support.

They attempt to be cheerful, but they do not succeed.

Once they've said their goodnights and Sam and Cam have left for their respective homes, Daniel turns to Vala, who rode with him to the restaurant. He's not sure whether this is another precipice or just a way of increasing their velocity in the long tumble from the first one. What he does know is that he doesn't feel nearly as much hesitation as he thinks maybe he should.

"My place is closer than the base," he says. "If you want," he adds, giving her an out.

He thinks he will smash himself on rocks that are much closer than they appear if she takes the out.

"I'd like that," she says, and he takes her in his arms and kisses her right there in the parking lot.

Vala hears the fear and hesitancy underneath the casualness of Daniel's question, and knows how important her answer is.

She's glad she doesn't have to think about it, glad he is the one to offer a continuation of their current sleeping arrangement, a continuation that is now an escalation since they no longer have the uncertainty of Teal'c's fate as an excuse.

The kiss is a welcome surprise, as is the moment Daniel deepens it, making delicious use of his tongue for the first time, one of his hands at the small of her back pulling her tight against him, his other hand tangling in her hair. She responds in kind, even as she tries to remain alert for the tell-tale tension that means they need to stop.

But it never comes, and little moans escape her because he feels so good, tastes so good, is everywhere everywhere everywhere in the best possible way.

"Sorry," he gasps when they finally come up for air.

Unpleasant tension coils in her stomach. "Whatever for?"

His eyes search hers. "I just . . . I didn't plan . . . "

She smiles, relieved. "Spontaneity can be a very good thing, darling. I certainly believe that was the case here, and I hope you feel the same?"

He returns her smile. "Yes. Definitely. I just hope . . . I mean, I don't want to lead you on . . . "

"Don't worry, I will expect nothing but sleeping and cuddles in bed with you until you specifically tell me otherwise," she says, tapping his nose.

"Thanks," he says.

"Just common courtesy, darling. I know I can come on strong, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that if that was a preview of things to come, I hope we proceed sooner rather than later, but at the end of the day I like my sexual partners just as enthusiastic about the whole thing as I am."

"Noted," he says, and it's hard to tell in the dim light of the parking lot, but Vala thinks there might be a twinkle in his eye.

Mitchell comes into Daniel's office the next day, closes the door, and folds his arms, looking calculatingly at Daniel and Vala.

"Can we help you with something?" Daniel asks after the silence stretches on too long.

Mitchell blinks, gathers himself, then says, "Vala didn't come back to base after dinner last night."

"Correct," Daniel says.

"Are you two sleeping together?" Mitchell asks.

"Not in the way that you mean," Vala answers smoothly. "At least not yet."

Daniel coughs. The _nerve_.

Mitchell sighs. "Are the two of you together in a romantic type of way?"

Daniel and Vala look at each other, shrug, then look back at Mitchell. "Yes," they tell him in unison. Daniel would rather not admit how much saying so, in this way, makes him feel like some giddy schoolboy.

"OK," Mitchell says, businesslike. "Don't know why that felt like pulling teeth, but OK. You're both non-military consultants, so it's allowed, but there's still some paperwork you gotta fill out so everything's copacetic. And . . . as your team leader, I wouldn't mind a heads up if anything starts hitting the fan."

"Thanks so much for your support," Daniel says drily.

"Aww, c'mon, Jackson, you know that isn't what I meant."

"Isn't it?" Daniel asks, holding Mitchell's gaze.

" _No_. Though I can see why it sounds that way. What I probably should've led with once you two confirmed you've got something goin' on was 'It is about damn time,' followed by 'congratulations' and 'I'm rootin' for ya.' Better?"

"Much," Vala says, flashing him a grin.

"Great. So you'll stop by HR and get that paperwork taken care of?"

"Yes," Daniel says, exasperated.

"OK. See you at the briefing later," Mitchell says, and leaves.

"Paperwork. How romantic," Vala comments.

"Want to go out tonight? On a real date, with both of us acknowledging it as such?" And the evening _not_ culminating in a kidnapping and him out of his mind with worry and fear and longings he couldn't acknowledge to himself the last time, and that would only make the whole ordeal that much worse if it or something like it were to happen again.

"Why darling, I was beginning to think you'd never ask," she says, slinging her legs into his lap and kissing him on the cheek.

"Also we should probably tell Sam and Teal'c and Jack before it hits the gossip whatever."

"Probably," she agrees, settling her arms around his neck. "Though personally I'm not seeing any particular urgency in any of those actions, are you?"

He smiles, putting his arms around her waist. "No."

This, of course, is the exact moment that Sam walks in. "Oh my God, _finally_ ," she says, and does a 180.

"Sam, didn't you come in here for a reason?" Daniel calls after her, blushing furiously.

"It can wait," she calls back, not stopping.

"I like our friends," Vala says, leaning her head on Daniel's shoulder.

"You only say that because we haven't called Jack yet," he tells her, though privately he both agrees and also wonders if he was the literal last person to figure out that he had to at least _try_ with Vala, that some edges would always be jagged, some cracks always unfilled, if he didn't give this a chance.

"You only say _that_ because you're forgetting that General O'Neill and I get along splendidly. You on the other hand . . . have you even talked to him since . . . you know?"

Right. Since he was a Prior. Since Jack made his skepticism clear right up until the last moment. Since Daniel was too hurt to let Jack try and mend fences before he had to go back to Washington.

"Yeah. I called him once I'd calmed down some. We worked things out."

"I'm glad. The world is a little off its axis when you two are genuinely angry with one another."


	3. Chapter 3

The next several weeks are split between regular duties related to exploration and the tracking and gauging of the Ori threat, gathering and assessing further intel on the attack on the Jaffa summit, and spending time talking with Teal'c and helping him through the recovery process. Daniel and Vala tell their friends and fill out paperwork, and for a brief time their new relationship is the hottest base gossip, but everything soon dies down and they all carry on more or less as before.

Teal'c recovers and nothing they say will convince him to either stay or accept help, so he goes to hunt Arkad. What Bra'tac tells them when he wakes up not long after Teal'c's departure is not reassuring.

Things only escalate from there, with the supposed threat to Earth and Arkad's likely duplicity and orders to stop Teal'c, which none of them like not just because it feels like betrayal but because as Mitchell puts it, Teal'c gives the Juggernaut a run for his money when it comes to inertia and unstoppability.

Still, all's well that ends well, as long as Teal'c once again badly injured but out of danger of death or permanent damage, one dead bad guy, and a mission report that plays more than a little fast and loose with the truth count as "well."

Daniel and Vala go back to Daniel's apartment as soon as they've debriefed and gotten confirmation that Teal'c is going to be fine and none of them are getting in trouble over the mission report, which they're all pretty sure General Landry knows is not entirely faithful to reality.

They kick off their shoes and Vala collapses onto the couch, expecting Daniel to join her, but he's hovering almost nervously. "What's wrong?" she asks.

"Nothing," he says. "Just . . . trying to figure out . . . Um. I know you just sat down but would you come over here?"

She cocks her head at him but does as he asks. He puts his arms around her and pulls her close. "I noticed that today is exactly two months since we decided to see how things would go between us. I'd say it's been a good two months, at least as far as we're concerned. What do you think?"

"Oh, I absolutely agree," she says, smiling.

"Good," he says, returning her smile and kissing her.

Kissing her like he did in the parking lot the first night they slept in his apartment instead of in her quarters on base. And then he spins them around, backs her up against the wall, and starts kissing her neck.

"Daniel?" she asks breathlessly.

"Come to bed with me?" he murmurs in her ear.

She pushes gently against his shoulders, and he leaves off kissing and pulls back so she can look him in the eye the way she wants to. "You mean—?"

He pulls her tight against him and leans his forehead against hers. "I'm ready if you are," he tells her.

She smiles, heart racing in anticipation and excitement.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in bed.

Everything was going so well.

Her relationship with Daniel is progressing in a way that feels right to both of them. Her friendship with Sam is deepening. Teal'c is making a full recovery.

Then her father had to show up.

Sure, Daniel was right that intel like what he claimed to have is always looked into even when it comes from the goa'uld. She's fine with that, she can live with that comparison, as long as everyone around her understands that she is, in fact, _making that comparison_.

But why did her good-for-nothing father have to _actually have_ good intel, good enough that the decent, honest Tau'ri with whom she has thrown in her lot feel obligated to honor the bargain Jacek asked for?

Initially, she thought it was a good thing that she reminded General Landry, who seemed inexplicably inclined to give her father the benefit of the doubt and to accommodate him as much as possible, that the SGC didn't make a habit of letting aliens, especially aliens with criminal pasts, loose on the civilian population as soon as they arrived on Earth. She thinks Landry might have actually shot her down if the rest of SG-1 hadn't backed her up.

Now, however, she's regretting speaking up, because, confined to the base, Jacek _will not leave her alone_. Not only that, but General Landry is oddly reluctant to put measures in place to keep Jacek away from Vala, at least while she's working, so Daniel had to go to HR to get Jacek banned from Daniel's office and Sam's lab. Unfortunately, even with those rules in place, there are still meals and the gym and the rec areas and Vala's quarters, which admittedly she's been using less and less, but she still keeps things there to which she needs access, and it seems like _every single time_ she remembers she needs something, Jacek just _happens_ to be in the corridor.

She loves spending time with her teammates, but needing one of them with her constantly to help ward off her father is taking its toll. She's never been more grateful for Daniel's willingness to leave her alone during the evenings at his apartment, if that's what she needs.

But it's all very exhausting, and she doesn't know how much more if it she can take.

Daniel would feel worse about going straight to the IOA if Landry hadn't already stonewalled him after the "little Pepito" incident.

Amazing, really. Jacek was on Earth, in a U.S. military base, for less than three weeks, and had already managed to pick up racist stereotypes and a total misunderstanding of Spanish nicknames.

With this jackass as her father, it's no wonder Vala has trust issues.

Daniel is usually in favor of second chances, but it's painfully obvious that Jacek, 1) has no intention of changing his ways and, 2) is going to keep harassing Vala with no regard for her feelings or needs, because he harbors some screwed-up sense of parental entitlement to her time and affection.

So yes, now that they've caught Jacek selling "stardust" on the Internet, Daniel is taking his concerns to the IOA.

Oversight is useful after all, at least occasionally.

Or . . . not.

Instead of restricting Jacek's movements, they insist he be allowed to carry on as before, except this time his phone and online activities are monitored.

Daniel can understand this decision from a strategic point of view, especially considering that Jacek really did know about those naquadah-filled cargo ships.

But Daniel's interest in this isn't strategic. No, his interest has everything to do with Vala, harried and exhausted, having to watch the dregs of humanity that is her father move about with the kind of freedom it took her months of hard work and devoted service to earn.

Both Daniel and Sam point out to Vala that part of the reason for this is that Vala had proved herself competent enough to be a threat, while Jacek so very clearly _isn't_ , but all it gets them is a tired smile.

Daniel hates to see her step lose its bounce, the way she glances around furtively before turning corners, the way she no longer feels safe and comfortable on this base where she is a member of the flagship team.

It's wrong on so many levels, but of course they have a _deal_ , and General Landry is, apparently, projecting his own issues with Dr. Lam all over Jacek and Vala, which makes keeping Jacek _away_ from Vala more difficult than it should be.

And then Jacek smooth-talks his way into a trip to the mall, gives his escort the slip, and by the time they catch up with him—thanks to the subcutaneous transmitter Jacek doesn't know about, which is admittedly the kind of thing Daniel would normally pitch a fit about but there are exceptions to every rule—he's attempting to negotiate for the naquadah on a cargo ship that is, apparently, here on Earth.

In the report, Daniel will claim that zatting Jacek as well as his Jaffa contact was an accident.

Vala almost wonders if she should feel guilty for how _not at all upset_ she is that Jacek is Area 51's problem now.

The Jaffa talked, they found the cloaked cargo ship, captured the guards, and even General Landry with all his frustrating sympathy had to admit that Jacek had very thoroughly violated the terms of their deal, and definitely could not be trusted enough to simply be sent back through the stargate; if he'd proved one thing, it was that he wasn't afraid to use any information he had for personal gain, and information about the Tau'ri base was undoubtedly a hot commodity.

So confinement at Area 51 it is.

Vala is enjoying being in her quarters without having to worry about her father knocking on the door when Sam, bearing wine and glasses, finds her.

"I'm not messing anything up, am I?" Sam asks as she comes in.

"No, no," Vala assures her. "Daniel's letting me enjoy a bit of solitude and won't be in for another few hours. I could go for a girls' night in."

Sam smiles, and pours the wine.

Daniel passes Sam in the corridor on his way to Vala's quarters.

Noting the empty wine bottle when he arrives, he asks, "Sam's not gonna drive home, is she?"

Vala shakes her head, smiling tipsily. "She's having a base car take her home, and she'll call Mitchell for a ride in the morning."

He nods. "Good. So was that what you needed?" He kicks off his shoes, strips to his boxers, and goes to the tiny bathroom to brush his teeth.

"Yes. I feel almost like myself again," Vala calls, and he hears rustling as she changes into pajamas, then, swaying slightly, joins him at the sink. He finishes before her and gets in bed, waiting for her to join him.

He prefers it when they sleep at his place, but, thanks to Jacek, it's been a month since they've felt like they even had the _option_ of sleeping here, so Daniel is grateful for this reclamation, for this return to what passes for normal for them.

Vala finishes brushing her teeth and crawls into bed, hitting the light on her way. She pillows her head on his chest and sighs contentedly.

He assumes she's dropped straight off to sleep, but after a while she murmurs, "Thank you."

"What for?"

"You know. Being on my side. Having my back. Zatting Jacek."

"Any time," he says, kissing the top of her head. Then, after a moment's thought, he adds, "You know, seeing this part of where you come from, it's . . . I feel like I have a new perspective on how amazing you are. There have been a lot of truly shitty things in your life that weren't your fault, and you've overcome all of them to become, well, you."

"Oh, Daniel, don't patronize me while I'm tipsy or we might both regret what happens next."

"No, sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I meant that . . . that I feel lucky to know you. To have this with you," he says, tightening his arm around her.

"Oh. Well, that's all right then. Now will you shut up and go to sleep, or at least let me? I'm exhausted."

He smiles into the darkness, and before long they both drift off.

Daniel hates this plan.

He hates Vala spending any length of time thinking they turned on her like that.

In fact, "Vala, you can't really think it would be that easy for us all to just . . . just . . . "

"No, of course not, but Adria won't know how implausible it is because I'll believe it."

"Actually, it sounds like there's too much risk of the false memory conflicting with your real memories of us and how much we trust and care about you. You might feel like something's wrong, and Adria could pick up on that and not trust you, and then it would all have been for nothing," Sam says, and relief washes over him that this isn't going to work after all.

"OK, well, what about if it's more clear that the IOA tied your hands completely?"

"You think we'd let that stop us?" The question sounds angrier than Daniel intends, but he hates absolutely everything about this.

"I know it wouldn't," Vala says, looking right at him. "That's why I'd leave before you did something jeopardizing your position here. Before any of you did," she adds, breaking the intense eye contact and including the rest of the team.

That brings him up short.

 _But I'd look for you. I'd run away_ with _you don't you understand?_

The thought surprises him.

In the strange way that something that feels completely natural has of being surprising when you stop to consider where it came from and how it got to be in this place where it just _fits_.

Well shit.

Or not, because with the way she looked at him when she said what she said, maybe he's not the only one realizing his romantic feelings have reached a new stage without him noticing.

" . . . sets up the gate address and is compatible with your real memories?" Sam is saying.

"Yes," Vala agrees.

"Sir, if you approve, I can calibrate the device today and we can be ready to implant the memories and escort Vala to the planet tomorrow," Sam says to Landry.

The bottom drops out of Daniel's stomach.

He doesn't think he's ever hated a plan in his entire life as much as he hates this one.

Unfortunately, it's completely brilliant, will probably work, and the reasons he hates it are almost entirely personal, so he has to keep his mouth shut.

"You have a go," Landry says.

Vala can feel the misery and tension rolling off Daniel in waves as they return to her quarters for the night.

It's incredibly sweet, really, even gratifying in a twisted kind of way, that he worries this much about her spending a day or two thinking Earth no longer wants her, that her team can't protect her.

There's also the matter of the look on his face when she said she'd leave before any of them could put themselves and their positions at risk for her sake.

Before he could.

Is it really such a shock to him, after everything they've been through? Or is it just that he's never heard her lay it out like that before?

Whatever the case, she wants, _needs_ to do everything she can to assuage his fears before the procedure tomorrow.

She closes and locks the door, then turns to him and takes his face in her hands. "Daniel. It's going to be all right. _I'm_ going to be all right. I don't know what more I can do to make you feel better about this, but if there's something, _tell me_."

He stares at her with the expression she's used to associating with unexpected finds of archaeological or linguistic significance when they're exploring or researching, the kind of discovery that makes him say things like "Do you have any idea how incredible this is?" or "I never expected to find something like this" or "Do you realize that this could completely change our understanding of . . . ?"

So what does it mean that he's looking at her like that? Like he's seeing something new and rare and precious?

He takes a step closer to her, and she slides her hands off his face and laces them around his neck. He wraps one arm around her waist and cups her cheek with the other hand, gazing intensely into her eyes.

"I realized something today," he tells her, and Vala is abruptly aware that at some point during the last few months they managed a safe landing, managed to not dash themselves to pieces, even managed to start filling a lot of cracks. But now, suddenly, there's another precipice, and they are racing towards it headlong. She raises her eyebrows. He takes a deep breath. "What I realized is, I love you."

There it is.

Something she's known for a while, but avoided putting words to.

Daniel always finds the words.

Time to take his hand and leap.

"Yes, well, now that you mention it, I love you too."

And he smiles, and it's warm and soft and radiant and one of the most beautiful things she's ever seen, but he's also crying, she notices. Just a few stray tears, but crying nonetheless.

"I don't understand," she says, reaching up to brush one of them away.

"Me neither," he says, laughing.

And then they are kissing.

She can feel his desperation and need and finally, it sinks in.

She _belongs_.

On Earth.

With SG-1.

With Daniel.

Who is right: this brilliant plan of hers is going to be absolute hell.

She matches his desperation with her own, and it isn't long before they are helping one another out of their clothes.

The gate activates, and Daniel's eyes lock on Vala as she comes through with Adria.

God, but she looks miserable.

He gives himself a mental shake. He needs to stay focused until they have Adria. Once that happens, he can take care of Vala, can fix this.

Vala's eyes dart towards him, then back to Adria as the Orici turns to her, angry and suspicious.

"I have no idea what's going on," Vala says. "Though I have to admit I don't hate it." She turns to him then. "This all looks very official," she says, her tone falsely casual; he can hear the hope and desperation underneath.

"I'll explain in a—"

That's when the Jaffa beam in, and everything goes wrong.

Yet somehow, that doesn't seem nearly as important as the way Vala stumbles into his arms as soon as the Jaffa beam back out, taking Adria with them.

He holds her tight, feeling the wetness of her tears on his neck. "It's OK," he murmurs. "Everything's gonna be OK now."

Vala is worried. She _wants_ to be back here, back on Earth.

With SG-1.

With Daniel.

She knows they want her here, too, but at what cost? What have they done, what have they risked?

She can't be the reason they get in serious trouble, she _can't_ , that can't be her legacy here, in this place that was finally home.

"Has anything actually changed?" she asks miserably. "I left because I was afraid you'd all do something foolish to try and help me, and I couldn't have that on my conscience, I just _couldn't_ , and I don't understand what could have changed so quickly, or how you found us for that matter. I thought you were taking a-"

" _Vala_ ," Daniel interrupts, taking her hand. She looks up at him, waiting. Waiting to hear that he hasn't gone and thrown everything away just for her, not when she broke herself all over again leaving, leaving _him_ , to prevent exactly that. "Nothing has changed, but that's a good thing, because it wasn't the way you remember it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"This device is a slightly altered version of the memory implant technology we received from a race called the Galarans," Sam says, indicating the thing on the table. "We used it to create a fictional memory and implant it in your mind."

Vala can feel herself beginning to panic. They wouldn't have . . . without her . . .

Daniel drops down from where he was perched on the table and crouches by her chair. "It was your idea, your plan," he tells her, voice low and intense. "We would _never_ have done that to you without your enthusiastic consent. Not ever."

She believes him.

"So when can we put it right?" she asks. "Because the sooner I can get rid of these unpleasant and, I'm glad to hear, false memories, surely the happier we'll all be?"

"Don't you want to know more details?" Sam asks, sounding surprised.

"Yes, but once you give me my real memories back I'll know them anyway, right?"

"Well, yes."

"OK, then."

Daniel wraps an arm around her shoulders as they walk to the infirmary, and she leans into him. There's something niggling at her, something to do with him.

Something good, she hopes.

The way he seems to want to cling to her as much as she wants to cling to him is a positive sign, isn't it?

She supposes she'll know soon enough.

Bad day.

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Just call her Alexander.

First those hours spent thinking she'd had to leave behind the first home where she'd felt truly safe in decades.

Then, once she got her real memories back, learning that her brilliant plan failed spectacularly thanks to Ba'al's interference.

Ba'al, who took Adria as a host, leaving Vala caught between vindictive triumph that Adria was getting a taste of her own medicine and sickening horror that yet another person was suffering through the atrocity of being trapped in their own body while an invader used it for their purposes.

Having the Tok'ra bring up her own experience as a host was _definitely_ exactly what she needed in the middle of all that. No sarcasm to that thought at all.

"I knew you as Qetesh."

What sort of thing was that to say to a person, anyway? Ta'seem didn't know _her_ , he just knew her face. If he was going to say it, he should've said, "I knew your body as Qetesh," and the inappropriateness of _that_ statement should've been a clue that he should just keep his mouth shut, shouldn't it?

Yes, very bad day.

Because _of course_ the surgery to remove Ba'al from Adria didn't go smoothly, and of course they couldn't replace him with a Tok'ra as planned.

Adria almost killed Daniel.

And managed to cheat death.

When Vala says that they dealt the Ori movement a blow, she means it. Or wants to mean it. Probably something more along the lines of trying to convince herself as well as her friends, while hoping they don't notice she's trying to convince herself.

Daniel notices.

"In or out?" he murmurs as they leave the briefing, a comforting hand on the back of her neck.

"In."

"My place or yours?"

"Yours."

She's not sure how she holds herself together for the drive to Daniel's apartment. Stubbornness and a desire to not have to move for a while once she falls to pieces, probably.

And fall to pieces is exactly what she does as soon as Daniel closes the door behind them.

One moment she's standing there waiting for him to close the door, and the next she's collapsing against him, wracked with the most heart-rending sobs, and he guides her to the couch and pulls her into his lap and just holds her while she soaks his shirt with tears and snot.

He wishes, more than anything he wishes that he could carry whatever this pain is for her, could heal every hurt that makes her cry like this.

All he can do is hold her while a few tears of his own trickle into her hair.

Today was so much worse than what he feared. And he's not even sure which parts of the "so much worse" have broken her like this, because he's learned the hard way that he can't make assumptions about what she's thinking and feeling.

"I'm here. I've got you. I love you," he murmurs over and over while she cries herself out.

These are, in this moment, the truest truths he knows, and he hopes they never turn false.

Three weeks on the ship.

Then two more weeks.

And then.

And then.

And then.

She's fracturing along all her fragile fault lines. She's going to break and she's going to smash him and maybe the others on her way down.

But definitely him.

She doesn't want that.

She doesn't know if she can stop it.

There might be a way.

She remembers having a false memory of doing something like it.

But time has passed since then.

She's not sure if she's strong enough now.

She loves him so much, needs him so much, wants him so much.

And to be fair, she's pretty sure she holds him together just as much as he holds her, so perhaps there will be shattering either way, and the only choice is whether they have a modicum of control over it.

For once, the hard thing and the safe thing are the same.

Can she take the ensuing devastation?

She doesn't know.

Is it actually the safe thing, when the risk and plunge has been so rewarding up until now?

Up until they boarded this damn ship that is taking her apart, piece by piece?

She doesn't know.

He knows she can't help it.

Confinement and repetition are anathema to her.

He knows this.

Doesn't make it any easier.

He can't blame her. He's got the Asgard core, Sam has trying to get them out of this, Landry has chess and plants, Teal'c is Teal'c, and Mitchell yells and runs and spars with Teal'c and occasionally trashes his room.

What does she have?

Him, mostly.

So he can't blame her.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

Some days he wonders if maybe it's a mistake, trying to keep what they have going while they're stuck here. After all, if it crashes and burns the way it occasionally feels like it's going to, there's nowhere for them to run or hide from each other.

The mere thought of seeing her every day, yet no longer having what they have now, brings an almost physical pain to his chest.

It was always a risk, being with her.

A risk he takes gladly, because they love each other and hold each other together and make each other better and he knows all her different smiles and the meaning behind each of them and the reason it was always, is always, will always be a risk is because the more he loves her the more he will break if something happens to her, or to them.

Even if that something is a time dilation field on a ship.

He thinks he sees the question in her eyes sometimes.

The horrible curiosity: now or later? Controlled breakage or chaotic smashing? Is it inevitable? Could it be anything other than inevitable, here, in this too-confined place?

Each night they cling to each other with varying degrees of desperation.

Some days are better than others.

Some days are _worse_ than others.

And somehow, somehow, time passes.

And passes.

And passes.

Bodies old and rickety, they know the wrinkles on each other's faces by heart, like maps in their souls.

Like cracks filled in and painted gold.

"We made it," Daniel says.

"We made it," Vala agrees.

They rest their foreheads together and lose themselves in each other's gaze, their old eyes alight with love.

Elsewhere on the ship, Sam hits the button.

"Teal'c, please, we don't need any details, just—"

"You wish to know whether your relationship lasted for the duration of the time dilation field," Teal'c interrupts.

Daniel and Vala glance at one another, then back at Teal'c. "Yes," they say in unison.

Teal'c smiles a slow, knowing smile.

"Indeed."

They are still broken, but they are healing.

Still full of cracks, but the cracks are filling.

In at least one possible future, they survived long enough to paint the cracks gold.

Maybe, just maybe, they'll do it here, too.

* * *

A/N: I got the idea for the kintsugi metaphor sunshinesamwinchester's gorgeous entry in the July round of the Sam Winchester Graphic Challenge on tumblr. The metaphor of falling was directly inspired by "Places to Land" by bydaybreak on AO3, the absolute most perfect _Leverage_ OT3 fic that I've read thus far.


End file.
